Category Archives: Computer Science education

Well, it has certainly been quite a year for the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam!
For those unaware, the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam is a volunteer run group of primarily students, that organises free. monthly events for young people and adults in Northern Ireland interested in technology.
This year, we formally defined the purpose of the group and its activities as

“The purpose of the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam is to further the advancement of education of both young people and adults across Northern Ireland in the field of Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Maths, Physics and related subjects. This is achieved through family friendly events for the public (Raspberry Jams), 1 to 1 mentoring for young people and programmes for educators including school teachers and parents.”

The Year in Numbers

This past year (July 2016 – June 2017), as a team we have

Been involved in 15 events across the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.

Volunteer team have wired up well over 10,000m of cabling in total and built up a stock of well over 1,500m of different cables.

Moved from our single room at Farset Labs, to the Queens University Maths and Physics Teaching Centre. By the June 2017 Jam, we ran Pis set up in 4 different rooms, running with x80 Raspberry Pis and x9 workshops.

Met 1 astronaut!

Highlights of the year

As a team, we agree it has certainly been a fantastic year. Alongside our x10 normal Jams (September-June), we also took part in a number of other special events. Below are a few of these highlights.

Dublin Maker – July 2016

Fantastic group of volunteers for Dublin Maker!

The main Jam team, plus a few awesome Jam attendees headed down to Dublin on the 23rd July 2016. Throughout the day, they interacted with over 1800 people with 1400+ DOTs boards filled in by attendees.

The team were swamped the entire event, with a number of occasions there being sizeable queues. That was even with us having one of the largest stalls (a triple stall) of the day. Our youngest attendee taking part was 2, while our oldest was 80+.

In October, the W5 education team invited a small group of the Jam team down to W5 for the day to help out with the Destination Space event, which British Astronaut Tim Peake was attending. The event was attended by 150+ school children from across Northern Ireland. The team ran the DOTs board activity, using the secret rocket Easter Egg, along with getting kids exploring the Sense HATs.

At the end, Hannah and Alex got a great conversation with Tim on the Astro Pi project and how he had used it while on the International Space Station.

The Move – February 2017

The new home for the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jams

In February, after 6+ months of planning/discussion with the Queens University School of Mathematics and Physics , we moved the main venue of the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam from the awesome Farset Labs, over to the much larger Queens University Maths and Physics Teaching Centre.

Some of the team braving the February weather on parking duty

The new venue includes x2 fully kitted out IT labs with x70 machines, x3 classrooms (2 of which we set up as small Pi rooms each month) and x2 lecture theatres, along with a large open foyer area for the break. Beyond a few initial cabling hiccups, we still somehow managed to pull off a successful pilot event, enough that the university allowed us to stick around. Since April 2017, we have been able to offer 100+ tickets for each Jam thanks to the much larger venue.

The new venue has also allowed us the space to run “lightning talks” in the break. These 7 minute so far have ranged from the Rosetta Mission, to how Cloud Chambers work to how to build your own Rubiks cube solving robot! This is something we plan to greatly expand in the coming year.

The first pilot Jam in February 2017 at the new venue

The Northern Ireland Science Festival special Jam

The junior volunteers ran their first workshop with a little help from Aoibheann.

For the first time, we ran 2 Raspberry Jams in the space of 1 month. The extra Jam was a special Jam as part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to meet new people, brought in via help with marketing from the Science Festival team.

Having far too much fun with Sonic Pi at the Science Festival Jam

Coderdojo Coolest Projects – June 2017

The final event for the team of the year, was Coderdojo Coolest Projects which took place on the 17th June, 2017 down in Dublin. The team had well over 700 DOTs boards completed by the Ninjas and parents, with feedback being fantastic as usual. The team were inundated all day, with rather long queues commonplace for their stall.

The Team

The team in April 2017

The team this year has grown significantly, from 8 volunteers in June 2016, to now over 20! A core principle of the Jam has been not only providing opportunities for the attendees, but also to invest in the volunteer team. A majority of the team are 18 or under, with our youngest being 14. These young folk have given up a combined total of well over 1500 hours of their time to make these events happen. When you consider that number, 1500 hours, that is a colossal number for a bunch of young folk who have completely different interests and passions, yet share a passion for inspiring other young folk in the fields of Maths, Physics, Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.

A few have admitted that being involved with the Raspberry Jam has immensely boosted their confidence in public speaking and engagement, while also completely changing what they want to do in the future towards STEM subjects!

To Conclude

It has been one heck of a year! For a group started almost by mistake 3 years ago, to have come on this far and be engaging with 5000+ people in the space of 12 months, while giving up over 1500 hours of their time for free all run off a shoestring budget, is quite something.

I am extremely proud and honoured to get to work with such a talented bunch of young folk to provide opportunities for tomorrows Makers, Inventors and Tinkerers to learn and thrive in a safe and fun environment here in Northern Ireland.None of this would be possible without them.

The what?

The BBC Microbit is a tiny circuit board with an onboard Arduino-like microprocessor and a number of sensors built in along with a 5×5 red LED matrix..Every year 7 (year 8 in Northern Ireland) student across the UK will be receiving one for free as part of the BBC’s Make It Digital programme. Right now, the current expected rollout is that teachers will receive devices late February 2016 while students will receive theirs a few months later.

The first thing worth pointing out is there is currently 2 ways to actually load your programs onto your Microbit.

If using a computer with a USB port, download a .hex file and copy the file onto the “MICROBIT” flash drive that appears when you plug the device in (so no special drivers needed).

If using a tablet or phone (iOS or Android is fine), you will be able to download your programs over bluetooth to the Microbit. I have seen a working demo of this at BETT 2016 for Android, although as of yet have not seen anything working with iOS.

Microsoft TouchDevelop

A simple script to show a smiley face when shaken for 1 second.

The first is Microsoft TouchDevelop. A project initially born out of Microsoft Research, TouchDevelop is an interesting environment for writing code, without actually needing a keyboard… It is very weird coming from a Scratch and Python standpoint, but I do understand where it is coming from. It is a perfect environment for using with touch based devices and works out of the box with Android and iOS web browsers.

Its interface is rather intuitive and for beginners, I think it will work great. You can run your code once you are ready on the virtual Microbit simulator to the right, or hit compile to download the .hex program file.

Microsoft Block Editor

Same script as above, in Microsoft Block Editor.

Microsoft Block Editor (based on Google Blockly) is more Scratch-like environment for building programs. It is based on Blockly (same as App Inventor). Students and teachers familiar with MIT Scratch or App Inventor will feel at home using the block editor.

To use it, you grab blocks from the menu on the left hand side of the screen and drag them onto the programming space.

The Block Editor works fine on a touch device, but is best suited to computer with a keyboard and mouse. It again also has the same simulator as Touch Develop to the right.

Out of the 3 web based editors available right now it is my favourite.

Code Kingdoms Javascript Editor

Same program, this time in the Code Kingdoms Javascript editor. Using full block/icon mode.

Not having ever really used Javascript, I was not really sure what to expect when trying the Code Kingdoms Javascript Editor. I will admit, I was certainly through pleasantly surprised.

Like Microsoft Block Editor, your available code blocks are down the left hand side, but unlike the other 2 web editors, you can switch between blocks and icons, right down to the raw Javascript itself if you want. This can be done using the slider at the bottom of the page and allows the more proficient programmer kids to go on ahead and write the text based code, while the students just starting out can stick to the blocks/icons mode.

By using the slider at the bottom, you can switch over to the raw Javascript code view.

Overall, it is a very nice and intuitive editor and a bit of a mixture between the block based system used in Microsoft Block Editor and the more code based approach of Microsoft Touch Develop.

MicroPython (with Mu)

Mu editor with the same shake program, written in Python using MicroPython.

The final platform built for students to use with the Microbit is MicroPython and the Mu editor.(It is worth pointing out here I am only looking at Mu, the offline editor for MicroPython. An online editor is coming but isn’t ready just yet)

Python is arguably now the most popular text based programming language used in schools with students. It is an extremely versatile language and has an easy to pick up, human readable focus on it.

MicroPython is an implementation of Python based off Python 3 for microcontrollers and devices with limited resources. This makes it a perfect candidate for use with the Microbit.

As part of bringing MicroPython to the Microbit, one of the developers decided to go ahead and build a beautiful offline environment to write your Python in. This editor is called Mu and can be grabbed from its Github repository. I am extremely impressed with Mu and MicroPython in general. It really opens up the possibilities of students doing some proper crazy stuff in a language they may have already had experience with. I am doing a separate post on Mu and MicroPython with more detail on the project as I have been most involved with it.

I think the biggest fundamental feature MicroPython on the Microbit has over the other platforms is it provides (if you install the driver on Windows, is included on Mac and Linux) a full console, or REPL. This allows you to simply type Python commands straight in and see the results. It also allows scripts to print data back to the serial console. It is worth pointing out though, Mu does not include any Microbit simulator like the other 3 platforms.

Edge connector

The Microbit features a large golden edge connector at the bottom. This edge connect brings out a number of GPIO pins from the microprocessor. 5 of these pins are large pads, designed to be used with crocodile clips. These 5 pins include 3 GPIO pins, 3V and ground. The 3 GPIO pins include Makey Makey style resistive touch which is a nice addition.

Although it looks like plenty of pins to work with, be warned that many of them have additional functions, whether that be driving the LED matrix, buttons or the I2C interface. Unfortunately because of this, instead of 22 GPIO pins, you actually really only have 9 pins you can use without interfering with other parts.

Of the 9 GPIO pins brought out with no additional features, 3 (0, 1, 2) can be used as analog sensor inputs while all can be used with PWM.

Other interfaces available on the edge connector includes I2C (pin 19 and 20) and SPI (pin 13, 14, 15). It is also possible to redirect UART serial out to any 2 pins, but in doing that you loose the REPL over USB. Right now, only MicroPython supports working low level with these interfaces.

Kitronik edge connector breakout board.

To make use of all but the 5 touch pads, you will need to get yourself a breakout board. Kitronik do an excellent (and pretty cheap) one over on their site which is available in assembled or unassembled form. They also have a rather nice assembled motor driver board available.
I am sure more companies with bring out similar boards when the Microbit is officially launched and publicly available.

Microbit vs Raspberry Pi

This is a question I have had a lot when chatting to people about the Microbit, especially teachers.

“What is the difference between the Microbit and the Raspberry Pi?”

The simple answer is they are completely different kettles of fish!
Here is why:

The Raspberry Pi is a full computer that you can plug a keyboard, mouse and screen into. The Microbit is not, it needs another computer to program it. Interestingly you can use a Raspberry Pi to program a Microbit!

The Microbit has an acceleromenter and compress built in, along with 2 buttons and a 5×5 LED matrix. The Raspberry Pi does not include anything like that out of the box, you have to purchase an addon board (HAT) or other modules and plug them in.

The Raspberry Pi can be programmed in many many more programming languages and platforms, hundreds even given it runs Linux. The Microbit can only be programmed in 4 or 5 languages.

The Microbit is very low power, using less than a 5th of the power of the Raspberry Pi.

The Microbit has GPIO pins like the Raspberry Pi, but only has 9 usable free ones, vs the Raspberry Pis 26 free GPIO pins.

Both support expansion interfaces like SPI and I2C, but the Raspberry Pi has libraries for many addon boards already, where as the Microbit doesn’t just yet.

The Raspberry Pi is much more powerful, the processor is 50-60 times as powerful and has 64,000 times as much RAM(16kb vs 1024mb)!

So the main difference is the Raspberry Pi is a full blown Linux computer, where as the Microbit has a simple little microprocessor which runs a single program and that is it. They can’t really be properly compared, but can be used alongside each other. The Microbit is a great starting point after which, a Raspberry Pi makes perfect sense to progress to.

It is pretty cool though that you can use the Raspberry Pi to program the Microbit. Using MicroPython, you can even use it as an “external sensor” for the Raspberry Pi. You could for example use it as a game controller for your game on the Raspberry Pi! Will be very exciting to see what people do with the Raspberry Pi and Microbit combined!

So what have I been doing with it?

I have been spending a majority of my time with the Microbit using MicroPython and in turn, breaking MicroPython!
Because the MicroPython environment is open source and on Github, it is really easy to open new issues for ideas for features or to contribute to documentation.

I have been fiddling about with a few of the less mainstream features including the new Neopixel library and playing with Touch support. I have gone into more detail about this in my MicroPython blogpost.

A few of my projects have involved a crazy mish-mash of wiring.

To conclude

I think there is a lot of potential for the Microbit. Sure a decent chunk will end up in drawers, on shelves or even on Ebay. But, those that don’t, those that get picked up by students with teachers that understand how to use them… Those it could really make a big difference with.

Will it inspire and create the next generation of computer scientists?
I am going to reserve taking a side till I can get a set and use it with a class of kids, but I can say with complete certainty, it will certainly inspire thousands of students across the UK to give Computer Science a go.
And who knows, maybe some of them will go on to create tomorrows “next big thing” because chances are, it will involve computers.

On Tuesday 15th December 2015, Tim Peake, the first British ESA astronaut, launched on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

To celebrate this, a number of Destination Space public events were being held across the UK with one at W5 in Belfast.
Myself and some of the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam team went along and with us, brought 10 Raspberry Pis, some Sense HATs and a stack of Raspberry Pi DOTS Boards.

What is Mozfest?

Mozfest is the annual Mozilla Festival, run at Ravensbourne College in London. This year the event is running on the weekend of 7th-8th November 2015.

Attended by over 1700+ people every year from over 50 countries, it is no small event. What makes it pretty cool though is it is a weekend run by the community for the community. It is all about the open web and technology and has sessions ranging from Journalism to Science to Learning! The sessions overview can be found here with the full list of over 300 individual sessions here.

Who wouldn’t want a high five from Foxy?

But, this year there is one big difference… There is going to be a massive new YouthZone! Now when I say massive, I mean an entire floor of the college dedicated to stuff for young people (and people still young at heart) with over 30 different sessions.!

As part of this, the Raspberry Pi Community has come together with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to deliver a whole stack of awesome Raspberry Pi workshops, aimed at young people.

In total, we will be running 17 workshops over the weekend, all aimed at complete beginners with titles including (to name a few)…

All our workshops will be aimed at complete beginners, so even if you nothing about Raspberry Pi or programming, no matter!
On top of the above workshops in the main Raspberry Pi zone, we will also have 2 other satellite mini Raspberry Pi programming zones with one in the music zone with a key focus on making music with code (especially using Sonic Pi) and the other focusing on the Raspberry Pi Foundation Dots Boards.

Raspberry Pi Dots Board activity at a previous event

This all sounds awesome, I want to come!

Awesome! We would love to see you down at Mozfest. Tickets are only £3 for young people! For adults tickets are only £45… Tickets are full weekend passes and include lunch both days so is amazing value.